Acceptance
by Steeljaw
Summary: The Demon World is an unforgiving place to those who cannot stand p to its harsh environment. Abandoned, our protagonist must struggle to push forward. Until meeting a peculiar young girl, Kohaku had been alone. Now a new door has reviled itself to our hero's eyes. What lies across its thresh hold is a new world entirely. One thing is certain, the struggles have only just begun.


_Rage._ So much rage. It was definate. Absolute. An emotion so strong that it consumed. Fueling a raging fire that, when left to wreck havoc without control, destroyed. Anything. Everything which stood in its path. Leaving in its wake a barren wasteland of raw emotion. There was no stronger a hatred born into the world that this.

I felt it.

I was abandoned. Alone.I'd never been alone. I was so _lost._ Lost in a world which I had little chance of surviving in. I wasn't strong.

_I have to be._

There wasn't a choice. The man which I had depended on for strength, safety and comfort. He _left_ me.

_Why?_

When I thought about it, the rage returned. Even though I sat curled with my knees held in a crushing hug to my chest, I felt as though I could level mountains with a look.

It wasn't fair, what he did to me. And although I had no one to blame but myself for such weakness, his rejection hit me harder than any fist could have ever hoped to.

_Fear._ A force which, much like rage, consumes . Though, its path of destrustion was of a different sort. Controlling those which do not have the strength to push forward. Devouring them in a void of never ending.

_I_ will _live._

The wind threatened to rub me raw where I sat. Blasting my face with a cold that did not phase me. I was _burning_, in fact. There was a heat that was tagible escaping my body. My muscles screamed from the sensation of burning without being burned. Without feeling overheated. My heat was only furled by raging thunderstorm of emotion.

Rage and fear were the dominate power of that storm. Accompanied with confusion, hurt, depression, and a total sense of loss. There was a hole in me. Dug so deep in my heart that it was possible that it might never be filled.

When I finally found myself in that storm, I held on tight. Clinging to the only thing I had left to depend on. Myself.

_It's not fair._

And it wasn't. What did he expect?

The night was calling too quickly, and even though my eyes could see through the darkness, I knew I wouldn't be able to make it to dawn the way I was without shelter.

I pryed my hands from my knees, stiff joints protesting with an ache which had been cause from hours of immobility. My knees did the same. Tingling with numbness due to minor blood flow.

I pushed myself up slowly. My knees knocking together in a show that was only half caused by fear. My rage didn't subside, however. It was there. Skyrocketing the fire and threatening to burn me alive, but I never did.

I was lucky. That night, darkness had claimed the earth before I had found someplace to hide myself. But I found a burrow. An emoty on which i had assumed an animal, of the mammel special, had once lived in. Large enough for me to crawl and wiggle my way into. Small enough to keep the things that would kill me at bay.

He would pay for this.

_One day._

* * *

"Happy aniversery." I muttered to myself. Sloshing icy water into my face and scrubbing my hands against my eyes.

Four years later and I was still very much alive and well. To my regret, the man who I sought to behead was as well.

I braced my hands in front of me. Staring down at the reflection. Everything was just the way it was supposed to be. Staring down at my blacker than black hair, which had an occasional strand of white which liked to peek through the dark mop and create the illusion of a starlit sky. Or, perhaps, a flash of light from the ocean's dark abyss raising up from its terrifying depths.

I still had a baby face. I mean, come on I was 10. And yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking. I'm too young for this. Well you're right _and_ wrong. The demon world doesn't care how old a demon. Just how strong it is.

Given that I had never exactly lived a tame life to start with, survival was the only thing I had left to cling to. That, and a vow to justify the betrayal I had been victim of.

Though, I wasn't in demon world _now_. The sky above me was a clear blue, occasionally dappled by fluffy white clouds. Verus the ominous red the sky bled in Demon world, tainted with clouds which were black as the night.

The terrain was similar, at best.

Dirt still smudged my face, still. Darkening my skin a smidge. I plundged my hands down into the flowing stream, cupping the cold water in my hand and splashing it up into my face to scrub.

I grinded my teeth at the contact. Looking down to the gnarly gnash above my temple. The bleeding was faint, at this point, and a bit of dirt lingered around its edges where it had scanned over.

With a heavy sigh, I studied it. Tilting my chin a bit to fast to get a better angle and winced at the throbbing pain that shot through my brain.

Again, I braced myself on my hands. I stared straight into my reflection's eyes.

My vision was obscured, you see.

At first, I stared down at a cherry red eye. It was bright as it was livid, dancing with the life of the fire which burned behind it.

And then the other. My gaze turned to look at and eye which had been stripped of its pupil, as well as part of its iris. Scarred over with a dull gooy silver color. The red in that eye had dulled, as well. Taking on a shade which was hakf way between crimson and pastel. The lid donned a scar which followed on both the top and bottom. Arching up and parting a section of my eyebrow and stopping g short just above there. On the bottom, it dipped no further down than my cheek bone.

It was a healthy reminder that I studied just about every day. Willing it to heal itself, though I knew better than to think it would have. I didn't really want it to anyway.

"This is stupid." I muttered, pressing my fingers to the throbbing gnash.

That's when I heard it.

A scream worthy of a banshee roared over the sound of the scream. Startling the birds, and me as well. I whirled around too quickly for my aching head to stand. I stumbled from the wave of nausious pain that split my skull in half.

I smashed the palm of my hand over my bad eye, fingers disappearing into my hairline with a groan.

Latching onto the pain, I used it to jumpstart my dive into my energy. Stretching out my mind's eye and engulfing myself in a world with was all black. Well. I take that back.

This would was in shades of white ( they made out tree's trunks and branches ) and blue - lavender ( the grass and leaves ). The sky above was an endless black. Divoid of clouds and the sun.

As I stretched myself further, I found the source of the shriek.

The energy was in a tone of green that was particularly light and bright, with a faint bluish cast, fleeing through the white-blue-purple world straight to-

My eye snapped open as I returned to the world around me. Just as the wielder of this energy burst through the shrubs in front of me.

I slowly rose to my feet, as not to disturb my throbbing skull, and turned to face her completely. She couldn't have been any older than I was. She was pretty, I'd give her that.

Her hair was the shade of wintergreen, with pale skin and eyes that were similiar to my own. Red. But a darker Color. Where mine were as bright as fresh blood, hers were like dark rubies.

She seemed shocked. Her mouth slightly parted and her brows lifted up high enough where they disappeared passed her bangs. She was wide eyed and frozen like a deer in headlights.

I quirked a brow up at her for this reason. Did I have something on my face? My hand was still covering my bad eye and the wound just above it. Though, that did little to stop the faint flow of blood that washed over my fingers. And there was some which had crusted into my hair and the side of my face that I hadn't gotten rid of yet.

Her shock seemed to disappear when a large creature soon joined us in the clearing. One I recognized as a bear. She screamed, making me grind my teeth while she rushed forward to me. Ducking behind me and clinging to the tatters of my clothing. I could feel her cold through the fabric.

I sent her a glare over my right shoulder. Even though I couldn't see her with that eye, I had to have this massive creature in my perverbial vision.

It's roar brought my attention back to it. A scowled crouching as it stood on its hind legs. It was much smaller on all fours.

A bear wasn't much of a concern. Not for me. Its size was a bit...intimidating, though. I had always had a bit of a confliction with things which were massively larger than I was. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I couldn't finish this thing off quickly enough, with little to no problems.

I mean, really. It was an ordinary bear of the human world. What could it possibly do?

My hand slid down to the holster at my thigh, grabbing the dagger there.

To spare you the details, I'll make it short. That bear was possibly one of the hardest things I've ever had to kill. It was irritating. I've slain demons stronger than that _thing_. It was embarassing. In the prossess of snarls, growls, roars and bared teeth, that bear had gotten more than a good few licks on me. My back bore marks which seemed more befitting of if I'd gotten drug along tree bark. Which I kinda did. The wound over my temple was bleeding again at a much more consistant pace, and I had wounds from its teeth in the bicep of my left arm. To top it off, I was fairly sure a bone in my leg had been fracture in the fray. Although, I've suffered through worse. I simpy just couldn't believe a _bear_ had done all this to me.

Might darkness had begun to claim the sky by the time I had felled the creature. The sky faded from orange, to gold-yellow, then pink into deep blue. It then proceeded to darken into navy at the furthest point from the sun, which is where the stars had begun to awaken from their slumber. The shore on the other side of the stream had turned to black, hiding the sun's circle from view.

I sat, eyeing the girl which had brought the beast to me. The uninjured leg bent at the knee so I could rest my arm against it. The other layer out over the ground. I leaned against my tender back carefully, the small spurts of irritation it cause my wounds were easy enough to bare. And every time she glanced my way, I scowled at her.

This time, she didn't look away. She sat close to the fire which I had struck. The light of the flames casting a light upon her which tinted her skin the color of its heat. Her skin glowed with the shade of orange-red embers, the flames dancing in the reflection of her eyes.

"Thank you." She said.

I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest with a snort.

"For saving my life." She said, after my clear (at least to me) dismissal.

"I wouldn't have saved you if you hadn't brought the damn thing straight to me." I snapped, even bared my teeth.

She flinched eyes returning to the fire.

"I thought you were someone else."

I quirked a brow at her.

"Your energy is like someone I know. So I thought..."

Again, I rolled my eyes again. Glancing back over to her, I saw something familiar. She had drawn her knees up. Hugging them to her chest with tears brimming in her eyes. I saw...fear. Not because of me, or the bear which lay discarded near our little campground.

A pang struck my chest. "Did this person...abandon you?"

Her eyes widened before she looked back to me. "No! He would never!"

"Then why isn't he with you?" I deadpanned.

Her jaw worked like she was going to speak, yet she could not find her voice.

"That's what I thought." I leaned my head back, eye still focused on the girl.

"It's not like that...I just got separated from my mom...and. And your energy was familiar. So I thought they had found me."

My head lifted as I observed her. Brows knitted together and my lips thinned. I was so conflicted.

The silence was heavy between us. Broken only by the crackle of the fire and the sound of the nocturnal animals waking from their sleep. Crickets chirped, owls hooted. I sighed and closed my eyes.

"I could...help you find them." Another pang struck me. This one made me flinch.

"Really?"

Her voice made me look back to her. It was so hopeful and relieved.

"Don't get any ideas. I just don't want you making my life any harder than it already is." I snapped.

Regardless of the bitterness in my tone. She smiled.

"Thank you."

"Yeah yeah." I grumbled, shifting to lean my back against the tree.

"My name is Kokoro. What's yours?" She spoke with a light in her eyes.

There was a brief moment of silence between us before I said "Kohaku."

* * *

_Notes:_

So. I thought I'd take a different approach with this story.

I have _plans._ I know exactly where I want this story to go, and how I want it to play out. And even though Kohaku is our main character, Kokoro plays a big role in this plot. 3

I'll be introducing some other OCs soon, which will have another important role. Canons will come along soon, too. ~

_That's all for now. _

I need a better title... ;~;

Reviews please!

Constructive critisism and ideas on writing style?


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